Iloilo Arts Festival again

By Noel Galon de Leon

After seeing the lineup of events for the Iloilo Arts Festival 2025, I had to pause for a moment. Is this really the best that the organizers could come up with for an annual festival funded by public money? Honestly, I was not impressed. The programming looks rushed, unimaginative, and poorly conceptualized. It feels like a checklist event designed to meet bureaucratic requirements rather than a genuine celebration of creativity. For a city that claims to value its artists and cultural identity, this lineup feels like a quiet insult to the very community it seeks to represent. Once again, the events are mostly in malls and museums. Familiar, convenient, predictable. But what’s new? What’s the point of another festival that refuses to think beyond safe spaces?

Some people might say I am being too critical. Yet, in the field of arts education and in the broader history of Philippine art, critical inquiry is not an indulgence; it is a responsibility. The question of space is not simply about physical location. It is about power, access, and representation. Every government-funded festival makes decisions about who gets to be seen and who remains invisible. And when the budget reportedly reaches 1.5 million pesos, however modest that may sound, citizens have the right to ask questions. Public funds, no matter how small, must serve public interest. Transparency, inclusivity, and fairness should not be optional.

The Iloilo Arts Festival holds immense potential. It could be a meaningful platform for local artists, cultural workers, and creative collectives to express, debate, and engage with the public. It could reflect Iloilo’s complex identity as a city negotiating between heritage and modernity, tradition and innovation. Yet, like many cultural festivals in the Philippines, it is often trapped in institutional aesthetics and elitist tendencies.

The intentions might be good, but the execution often serves the same small circles of influence. What could have been a citywide celebration of diversity becomes a closed circuit of familiar names and faces. In the 2025 edition, yes, there are new venues and expanded programs, but we are still left wondering who truly gets included. Why does “inclusivity” sound like a press release term rather than an actual principle guiding the festival’s operations?

If the local government and the festival organizers are serious about inclusivity, they must begin with transparency. The selection process for events and participating artists remains opaque. Many local artists have shared their frustration at the lack of open calls or clear criteria. It seems participation depends on personal connections rather than artistic merit. When that happens, the festival becomes less about art and more about networking politics. And in such a context, culture ceases to be a public good; it becomes a privilege.

Most of the festival’s activities are still centered in malls, museums, and mixed-use commercial complexes like IBP. This may seem practical, but it reflects a narrow view of what art can be and where it belongs. Art confined to polished, commercial spaces becomes domesticated and sanitized. It loses its capacity to engage the public beyond the comfortable middle class. Meanwhile, artists and communities in the barangays, upland towns, and coastal areas remain spectators rather than participants. When will the festival bring art to them not as charity or outreach, but as a central part of cultural life?

The more painful truth is that projects with critical content—those that ask questions, provoke debate, and expose uncomfortable realities—are rarely prioritized. Instead, we see a preference for crowd-pleasing performances, “Instagrammable” exhibits, and glossy art talks that flatter corporate sponsors. These may draw audiences, but do they deepen understanding? When art is reduced to entertainment, it loses its capacity to disturb, to unsettle, to transform. A festival that fears offense will never generate insight.

If the Iloilo Arts Festival truly wishes to be meaningful and just, then much has to change. First, there must be clear and public guidelines for participation. Every artist—from established names to emerging painters from Jaro, Guimbal, or Miag-ao—should have access to information about criteria, deadlines, and available support. Participation cannot depend on personal networks or insider knowledge.

Second, the festival must be decentralized. Art should not be confined to malls. It should travel to the barangays, the rural communities, the old school auditoriums, the seashores, and the plazas. The city government should provide funds for transportation, logistics, and production support for artists coming from outside the urban center. A festival that stays in air-conditioned venues risks becoming detached from the realities it claims to represent.

Third, there should be funding mechanisms or grants for marginalized and resource-poor artists. Not everyone has the financial capacity to join exhibits or performances. Stipends, shared materials, or access to mentorship programs can make participation possible for those historically excluded. Without this, the festival will continue to reproduce privilege under the guise of celebration.

Beyond participation, the festival should implement clear systems of impact assessment. Success should not be measured only by the number of attendees or photo opportunities. It should also account for how many local artists were involved, how many communities were reached, what kind of dialogue was created, and whether it contributed to artists’ livelihoods. If art is for the people, then the impact must be felt by the people.

And please, let us not forget the need for critical art. Not all art should be comfortable or easy to consume. There must be space for works that confront questions of Ilonggo identity, colonial history, urban transformation, and heritage destruction. Art must interrogate, not just decorate. A city that avoids discomfort avoids growth. Festivals should not only entertain; they should awaken.

Finally, balance is crucial. Commercial art and sponsorship are not inherently bad, but they must not overshadow the independent and public spirit of the arts. Branding should not dictate the soul of the festival. Art should serve the community, not corporate imagery. If artists remain silent in the face of these contradictions, they, too, become complicit in their own marginalization.

Iloilo deserves better. Its artists deserve more than token invitations and recycled programs. If Iloilo is indeed the “City of Love,” it should also learn to love its artists, not just when they are convenient for social media promotion, but because they are the heart and conscience of the city. Art is not decoration. It is the soul of a people, and the soul should never be treated as a seasonal attraction.